First Sunday of Lent: Lenten blog break

Stained glass from St Mary's, Greenville, SC: Christ stills the tempest.




In case you all haven't figured out by now, I am taking a blog break for Lent.

I did not initially announce this, because I wasn't sure I could do it. Last year, I tried it and had to break my silence over the death of my favorite author. This year, I thought I would do likewise, when I heard about the death of a well-known American war criminal.* Then I thought, NO, I will not break my Lenten devotions for.... him. I might, though, for something or someone of towering importance. (The official rules are that Lenten devotions are suspended on the Sabbath, so I will try to update you on my spiritual progress every Sunday, if I have anything to say.)

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I need to get centered, and perhaps I need to get my blog-stats way down first, before that can happen. I have been thoroughly confused over various Blogdonia incidents of late (such as being banned at FWD/Forward without explanation), and once again wondering if I belong here, Land of the Ultra-Connected and Always-Trendy Grad Student. Certainly, I am not as smart as ANY of these people. (And they like to tell me so, often.) But I am committed to the idea that even us not-smart people deserve a place to hang out, and deserve to have our say, even if we aren't up to the standard of FWD or similar high-toned blogs.

Does everyone have to be a genius these days? When Dubya was president, the communication standards were much lower! ;)

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I'm also trying to figure out how to talk/write about fat, of all things.

I have usually worried that anything I wrote about fat, fasting and/or calorie restriction had to be very careful not to "pile on" in a fat-hating, fat-hysterical culture. As is the case with disability, it is very difficult to discuss things honestly when dread, misogyny and negativity are the rule. But the fact of the matter is: fat is not good for me. Fat is trashing me. It is indisputable that 50 extra pounds on one's knees and feet (regardless of the source of that weight) are going to be pretty damn rough on that person's knees and feet, especially if they stand/walk all day. I have decided that drastic action is necessary to prolong my working life and my overall bodily health.

In feminist Blogdonia, it is not considered progressive to say anything negative about fat, and I have therefore been very reticent to write this, although I have written about the calorie restriction movement (CRON) and related issues in the past. In a culture that thrives on jokes about the likes of Jessica freaking Simpson being fat (!!!) ...well, this is obviously not a healthy environment to talk about fat. Duly noted and understood. But I am post-menopause and at my highest weight since my pregnancy. This is not good, and I am changing it.

In the process, I have noticed that our culture's negative-obsession with fat has dovetailed with the "personal acceptance" of fat overall. We all weigh more than ever. I remember when Archie Bunker was considered a fat guy, and now... well, go over to TV-LAND and have a look at him. Does he look fat to you?

Our standards have radically changed.

I was regarded as one of the biggest girls in my school. Looking at crowds of kids congregating outside of middle schools now, I am utterly amazed by their average size; that would certainly not be true today. My middle-school-sized self would not even be considered big at all, by today's standards.

Americans are just plain consuming too much. And not just food, but in every respect. Food is only one of many things we plow through at an alarming rate. We use most of the world's oil and other natural resources. We ship our garbage everywhere. As I get more and more involved with the Green Party, these matters are increasingly on my mind.

And I am meditating and praying and will get back to you. I loves you guys! (((weeps)))

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*To the right wing trolls: I will not argue this point with you and will delete all comments defending ALL Nixonian-era mass-murdering swine. Thanks in advance.

The Closing of The Open Book

It is with a heavy heart that I report on the loss of The Open Book, the first place I ever worked here in South Carolina. It's the oldest independent bookstore in the area, and ever since the arrival of Barnes and Noble, its days have been numbered.

I am always amazed when the heavily-Republican upstate prefers big business retailers over small businesses, all while bleating the patriotic, pro-capitalist mantra small business is the future of America. Somehow, that never actually translates into trying to SAVE those small businesses by, you know, patronizing them to keep them from going out of business.

At least once a day I hear the phrase, "I can get that cheaper at Walmart." (I fight back the urge to reply, well yeah, if you wanna burn in hell for all eternity!) But it is telling that I can first remember hearing "I can get that cheaper at Walmart," while working at the Open Book. The volume in question was of course some mega-billion-seller by Stephen King or Danielle Steele. We thought, well, they still have to come to us for the offbeat and hard-to-obtain stuff.

That was in 1989, and well before the internet. As you know, that is no longer true.

And unfortunately, you can still get it cheaper at the Walmart.

Greenville's Open Book closing its doors
Customers say a community will vanish with independent retailer
By Jeanne Brooks • Staff writer, Greenville News
January 25, 2010

A card with the news went out to about 1,000 of the store’s best customers over the past year. After four decades in business in Greenville, The Open Book is closing.

Park McKnight, a customer in the store Saturday, said once the doors shut for good, “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

The independent bookstore first opened in August 1971, in what was then the Bell Tower Shopping Center, now County Square, long before the era of large national chain bookstores, big box retailers selling books at deeply discounted prices, or online book sales.

Tom Gower at age 48 left a successful corporate job to become a bookstore owner. He went on to make the Gower name “synonymous with local bookselling,” as a Greenville Piedmont story put it in 1987.

The Open Book has remained a locally owned family business to this day. At one point, there were three stores in Greenville and a branch in Clemson. Earlier, for a couple or so years, there was also a branch in Anderson.

Gower’s wife, Elizabeth, and three of their four children — Margaret, Tommy and Grier — worked in the stores alongside their parents. One son, Roger, became a doctor instead.

In 1978, the family opened an Open Book in what was then McAlister Mall, now University Center. Managing it fell to Margaret. She hired Duff Bruce to help, and the two married in 1984.

Through the decades, the bookstore attracted and kept devoted customers like Anne Howson and her husband, Art.

“We have relied on Duff for at least 25 years to make recommendations” about what to read, Howson said Saturday.

Every Christmas, Howson’s husband would call for suggestions for the five or six books he always gives his wife. When he came to the store later, Bruce would have a list ready.

Howson said she was sad to learn the bookstore is closing, “but not at all surprised. I know what a struggle this has been (to keep it going). It’s been a labor of love for them.”

For her, “It’s more than just a business closing its doors.” A sense of community will be lost. The Open Book hasn’t been the kind of place to hurry in and out of. “You walk around,” she said, browse the shelves, and talk books and ideas with the owners and staff.

The Open Book’s various stores were consolidated in 1993 into a single bookstore with a café, which the Bruces now own, in a 12,000-square-foot building at 110 S. Pleasantburg Drive.

Books-A-Million, on Laurens Road, “was already here,” Bruce recalled. “And we knew Barnes & Noble was looking.”

Barnes & Noble opened a 29,000-square-foot store on Haywood Road the following year.

But The Open Book held its own for a while. For one thing, “Greenville was growing at the time,” Margaret Bruce said. She has since come to think, “We probably weren’t getting the new people on the Eastside.”

The year the Open Book consolidated, in 1993, there were about 4,700 independent bookstores in the United States, according to the American Booksellers Association, The New York Times reported. By 2007, there were about 2,500.

The plight of the independents was portrayed in the 1998 film, “You’ve Got Mail.”

The independent bookstore The Happy Bookseller in Columbia, founded in 1974, closed in 2008.

But the Bruces said a combination of factors beyond large chain bookstores, some of which are also feeling pressure, have made it tough for independents. For example, some big-box retailers and online booksellers discount books to below cost, Bruce said.

The Bruces started thinking about what to do two years ago. “We both look at the sales every day,” he said.

They considered different options like going smaller. “But we were just tired,” Margaret Bruce said. “We’ve been doing this a long time.” They decided last summer to stay open through Christmas, then close.

They expect to lock the doors for the final time in about a month. There will be much they miss. They will miss the customers, many of whom have become good friends, they said.

And for Bruce, “There’s really nothing quite like handing somebody a book that you think they might like.”

His wife, who has worked in one or another of The Open Book stores most of her life, starting when she was 15, has always enjoyed looking at what sold the day before and reordering.

Once retired, they both intend to read more. Margaret Bruce also wants to do volunteer work.

Also “Margaret has never been to Europe,” Bruce said. “I haven’t been in 30 years.” So maybe they’ll go.

One thing for sure, “We won’t miss worrying about selling enough books,” she said.

At left: From the children's book department, The Cow Jumps over the Moon.

When the store closes, the book clubs, writers groups and nonprofit boards that meet in The Open Book’s back room will have to find another place.

Some schools will have to seek another advertiser for their yearbooks and another donor. A small pool of local businesses, such as office suppliers, will be in need another client.

And local starting-out authors, as Nicholas Sparks was at one time, will have to look for another spot willing to host a signing for someone not yet widely known.

Howson, a librarian as well as a longtime customer, said, “It goes beyond economics. It makes me sad to think that to save a few dollars we give up so much more.”

The Bruces worked on the language of the card they sent out. Margaret Bruce wanted to make sure it didn’t sound “too weepy.” At the end they put, “We will miss you all and hope you continue to shop local. It matters!”

My deepest and most heartfelt novenas go out to everyone at the Open Book, past and present... it always hurts when a dream dies.

*all photos from my Flickr account.

Snowing in Carolina!

I took these photos earlier today!

Tuesday Music, better late than never

Bloggers often call it "Monday Music" (on Twitter, it's reversed: Music Monday), but I never have time to post Monday Music... so can't we change it to Tuesday Music?

Ahh, no alliteration.

In any event, I hope the following are arcane and interesting enough for all of you. I had originally believed they were in chronological order, but now that I am carefully checking the dates? I discover, hm, no they aren't. Sorry about that!

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Ann Peebles is too great for mere words.

I Can't Stand the Rain - Ann Peebles (1974)



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Excellent early-70s funk stylings, featuring terrific trumpet work by Cynthia Robinson. Also, a great song about drug addiction! (I realized this even in junior high school, which probably wasn't a good sign.)

Look at you foolin you...

Running Away - Sly and the Family Stone (1971)



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Love the Bruce Lee doll that materializes out of nowhere!

I'm the Man - Joe Jackson (circa 1978)



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Pylon is the band from Athens that was inexplicably left behind as all their friends became mega-famous. Life isn't fair.

Video footage is from the silent film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920).

Danger - Pylon (1980)



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About time for another Black Swan event, isn't it? I used this song in my "Black Swan" post titled It should be obvious, but it's not (from the lyrics).

**Note: Repeated usage of F-word if you are at work or school or otherwise being monitored!**

Black Swan - Thom Yorke (2006)

[via FoxyTunes / Thom Yorke]

Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids

NASA photo of Mars.




Would you crack up if you were closed in a small space for 520 days? And saw only the same two or three people? Which people, you are wondering... I suppose it might be important to LIKE those people, right? After being locked up for 520 days with someone, I might dislike them INTENSELY and never wanna see them again...

I heard about this on NPR. This past year, they did a 105-day run-through, and will increase the isolation-time during each test-period. They will finally do a whole 520-day simulation before an actual flight to Mars.


Volunteers Locked Away in Mock Mars Mission
By Tariq Malik, Senior Editor, LiveScience
31 March 2009 06:07 pm ET

Six volunteers locked themselves away in a network of metal tubes for the next 105 days on Tuesday in an experiment to study the human stresses of a manned mission to Mars.

Four Russians and two Europeans — a mix of cosmonauts, doctors, an engineer and an airline pilot — shut the metal hatch behind them, sealing themselves inside a habitat at Russia's Institute for Biomedical Problems (IBMP) in Moscow.

The three-month endurance test is a trial run for a planned 520-day mock Mars mission by the European and Russian space agencies later this year to study the effects of prolonged isolation on the human body and mind.

"A crew traveling to Mars will face major challenges, not least, how to cope with being confined to a small space and seeing the same faces for one and a half years," said Martin Zell, head of the European Space Agency's (ESA) space station utilization department. "It is of paramount importance to understand the psychological and physiological effects of long-duration confinement, to be able to prepare the crews in the best way possible and to learn about important aspects of the vehicle design."

German mechanical engineer Oliver Knickel and French pilot Cyrille Fournier represent Europe inside the mock Mars habitat. Cosmonauts Oleg Artemyez, Sergei Ryazansky, sports physiologist Alexei Shpakov and medical doctor Alexei Baranov, meanwhile, round out the crew's Russian contingent. The six men are the prime crew for the Mars500 project, the joint European-Russian effort by ESA, the IBMP with funding from Russia's Federal Space Agency.

"Mars500 is the proof that we are preparing for the future," said Simonetta di Pippo, ESA's director of human spaceflight. "[It] is an important part of this global endeavor as it provides us with the knowledge of how to keep a small crew psychologically and physiologically healthy, and ultimately, to succeed in the big challenge to bring humankind to Mars and safely back to Earth."

During the next 105 days, the six-man Mars500 crew is expected to simulate every aspect of a Martian expedition, including a long cruise to the red planet. After a mock orbital phase, the team would then simulate a landing on the Martian surface and an excursion before another long cruise period back to Earth.

Their habitat, which never leaves its Moscow facility, is a series of connected, but compact, metal tanks outfitted with supplies and equipment to last the full 105-day duration. It includes a Mars descent capsule, kitchen, medical area, research area and a crew compartment.

Altogether, the mock Mars ship contains about 2,152 square-feet (200 square-meters) of space. The Mars500 crew will have voice communications with a simulated Mission Control, as well as with their family and friends. But a 20-minute time lag will be built into the discussions to replicate the one-way transmission delay that would be experienced in a real Martian expedition.

A series of simulated emergencies are planned, and real-life emergencies would first fall to the crew to solve, ESA officials said.

"They will have to cope with simulated emergencies; they may even have real emergencies or illnesses," ESA officials said in a statement.

And they emerged from the imitation-spaceship on July 15, 2009:

MOSCOW (Associated Press) -- Russian engineers broke a red wax seal and six men emerged from a metal hatch beaming yesterday after 105 days of isolation in a Soviet-era mock spacecraft testing the stresses space travelers may one day face on the journey to Mars.

Sergei Ryazansky, the captain of the six-man crew, told reporters at a Moscow research institute near the Kremlin that the most difficult thing was knowing that instead of making the 172-million mile journey they were locked in a four-piece windowless module made of metal canisters the size of railway cars.

The men, chosen from 6,000 applicants, were paid about $21,000 each to be sealed up in the mock space capsule since March 31.

Don't think I could handle it.

And now, you know what comes next, or you should.

It's one of the great dramatic renditions of the 20th century!

William Shatner - Rocket Man



Have a great Super Bowl Sunday, everyone!